Many years ago, I gave my opinion here on this subject. My opinion is based on: 1- The belief that even cartelistas fear death, 2- The US possesses a strong, well experienced set of commando forces in SOCOM, 3- The US possesses clandestine HUMINT assets that do not look, act or sound like American soldiers.
My proposal is that the US should create a special federal court in which significant cartel figures should be tried in absentia for their crimes against the American people and if convicted condemned to death. “Kill or capture” orders would then be issued to SOCOM.
The aforementioned HUMINT assets would be tasked against the condemned so that a target package could be created and passed to the commando types.
The HUMINTERS would not be involved in any way in the actual strike so as to preserve them for future use,
The SOCOM commandos would take out the condemned in a manner thought suitable
Would there be friendly casualties in such a campaign? Yes, but the costs now being inflicted on the people of the USA outweigh such casualties.
Should the Mexican government be informed? No. The Mexican government cannot be trusted ia covert action against the cartels.
Comment: I posted this in October, but I listened to the blowhard “Gutfeld!” talk of bombing Mexico last night. Therefore, IMO it is necessary to re-post. Why doesn’t Fox give this show to Tyrus? Mexican sovereignty? What a joke! Large parts of the government are bought and paid for by the cartels. pl
Pat I c/n agree more. W/O any knowledge of military particulars on the southern border I’ve had a more direct answer about the cartels; kill them. Begin a military opn to kill them whenever found. Flck the Mexican gov’t, they have not been America’s friend since the M/A War (and no wonder). They remain Anti-American. “Where there is a will, there is a way”; but America d/n have the will. We are no longer a nation but a divided people who neither trust nor like one another. Parting will not bring much sorrow. The question is, of course, how to divide w/o violence.
Wouldn’t such special military operations be a continued violation of Mexico’s sovereignty?
wizz,
Of course it would be. But then the cartels are violating the dogshit out of our sovereignty. I don’t feel any sympathy for them… not even a little bit.
wizz
yes.
Turn it on its head: if the Mafia were running drug operations through Mexico would the USA be ok with the notion of Mexican special forces taking out hits on Mob figures in Chicago and Los Angeles?
My assumption: “No, the US government would not be at all OK with that activity”.
What’s good for the goose should be goose for the gander, and if the US government is OK with doing this to Mexico then they should also be equally complacent about other countries performing the same activities on US soil.
Though I suspect that wouldn’t be the case because, you know, exceptional nation ‘n’ all.
Nonsense. Foreign Policy is not about fairness.
I’m not talking about “fairness” but about “weakness”.
Fentanyl is, apparently, an epidemic in the USA and – again, correct me if I am wrong – the main source of that Fentanyl is China.
Would you also advocate the insertion of SOCOM death squads inside China?
And if not, then why not?
That is not a question regarding “fairness” but, rather, it is about the wisdom of embarking on a policy whose main outcome iwould be to highlight the limits of US power.
Rubbish. You are an Israeli. What would indicate strength? More support for Israel?
Czech Republic and Slovakia had a peaceful separation since they never should have been put together in the first place. For those of us who mostly only knew the once Czechoslovakia.
I agree – the drift and passions has grown too deep, plus too many illegals now are simply not invested in life in America, its history, its language, its traditions, its culture. We see fracture points now all the time in California.
May seem trivial but we are having rash of all night illegal fireworks, in our very high fire prone area, in the neighborhoods with very high numbers of illegals and their families (may include anchor babies who also exist only on the periphery).
Community warnings go out against fireworks, but they are ignored along with a total disregard of neighbors dogs and sleep. It is one thing to know there is one day where this is celebrated – July 4 – but that is a meaningless event for this group. In fact they love knowing they are annoying.
Legal fireworks sales are still allowed in parts of the county, but they are totally illegal in our town. This is what it is like in just one way, after leaving the back door open and have two decades of “progressive” enabling of illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. As well as too many local exploiting scab labor. That too.
Kamala Harris got it right when she said our immigration policy is broken. But she was 100% wrong when she tried to blame Trump. This huge new influx we can no longer pretend to absorb is all on the Biden-Harris watch.
Don’t forget all the rooster crowing and loud thumping bass music. My pet peeves, living in the barrio with my Latina girlfriend.
And yet that shows the difficulty of division right there.
You will endure the rooster crowing and the loud thumping bass music as the price to be paid to get to live with your Latina girlfriend.
If the country hard-divided into two or more pieces, would the various successor authorities be nice enough to let you and your girlfriend live together on you’re-all’s chosen side of the line? Or would the authorities be so committed to ethno-state purity as to demand that you separate onto your own ethno-sides of the line?
I would prefer to see a looser form of Just Barely United States emerge in preferrence to a bunch of Hard Line Successor Countries. Maybe a revival of an Articles of Confederation States of America( ACSA) from before the Constitution.
I reply to me 5 months later … kill them. The manner isn’t important. Mexico be damned, consistency be damned. The Mexican govt is complicit in the drug running so f them. I also believe there shld be no federal money spent on drug rehab. You want to shoot up/pill up, have at it and die. You will reduce the population of useless and dependent citizens of America. Harsh? Maybe. Effective, yes.
That would probably be effective but this is extremely short-sighted, opening a Pandora box you seemingly have no idea of.
– What would prevent other state powers to do the same for other purposes, possibly in stealth mode (Iran, North-Korea), Westphalian sovereignty was arrived at for some reason.
– Once established what would prevent obscure state powers to use it for other purposes (akin to Obama “droning”) given the dereliction of American and other worldwide governments this is not a rhetorical question.
jld,
Iran already tried to execute a kidnapping in Brooklyn last year. What stopped it? It was our intelligence, counter-intelligence and police capabilities. That’s what would prevent other state powers, or even the cartels themselves, from doing this in the US. It’s already a reality, like our droning, Israel’s assassinations in Iran and Lord knows what else.
jld
Westphalian Sovereignty is a useful concept. I believe it is critically important for states to retain sovereignty in era of surpranational bodies like the UN, the EU and especially NGO’s like the WHO. The power play between sovereign states is healthy and necessary in order to prevent the advent of a world government – the arrival of which would be an unmitigated disaster for mankind. Part of that power play is the exercise of legitimate interests in neighboring states (as distinct from R2P adventures in far off places).
Westphalian Sovereignty is less useful in considering whether and to what extent nations should exercise those interests abroad. That determination must and will always be made on a purely pragmatic basis. In this case we should ask “what is the worst that could happen?”. The capture of some commandos or the PR disaster of an operation gone wrong with significant ‘collateral damage’ is the answer, I guess. Decapitating the cartels and putting the temor de Dios into the bosses’ would-be replacements may be worth the risk.
That’s pretty radical, to send commandos into another country to kill selected citizens of that country. And what a precedent it would set. Could it work? Maybe for awhile, but it would come to pass that, if it happened enough, such commandos might face summary execution as terrorists and then what would we do…
Seems like an A-1 bad idea.
They weren’t commandos, but we did send in Black Jack Pershing.
Drones could do effective kills!
Perhaps tiny drones disguised as honeybees or bumblebees which “sting” the target with a ricin stinger.
” Ouch! G-d D-mnit! Forking bumblebees!”
( and in fact mix in some bumblebee venom and maybe even a credible-fake bumblebee stinger so all the symptoms of bumblebee sting are what initially present).
My proposal is that the US should create a special federal court in which significant cartel figures should be tried in absentia for their crimes against the American people and if convicted condemned to death. “Kill or capture” orders would then be issued to SOCOM.
Your proposal is a recipe for unmitigated disaster.
The boondoggle known as the 18th Amendment/Volstead Act (aka Prohibition) clearly shows that government can never stop human wants/desires – history shows this effort was an abject failure. What alcohol prohibition wrought was violence and corruption across all of the US.
The drug war boondoggle has been an even greater failure. Persons who wish to ingest illicit drugs are already doing so – within a 1 mile radius of your home you can find a plethora of illicit substances for sale. Drugs are also plentiful in prisons and jail houses across the US. Laundering drug cartel money has become a multi-billion dollar business for US banks/businesses.
The US government has squandered over a trillion dollars since the drug wars stillborn inception 50 years ago.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/17/the-us-has-spent-over-a-trillion-dollars-fighting-war-on-drugs.html
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from website of the Marshall Project found within a report titled:
Inside The Nation’s Overdose Crisis in Prisons and Jails
Behind bars, drug use is rampant and uniquely deadly, new data shows.
From 2001 to 2018, the number of people who have died of drug or alcohol intoxication in state prisons increased by more than 600%, according to an analysis of newly-released data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In county jails, overdose deaths increased by over 200%.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/07/15/inside-the-nation-s-overdose-crisis-in-prisons-and-jails
Drug cartels have infiltrated the entirety of the US north/south/east/west. Cartels have also infiltrated elements of local, state and federal governments/agencies.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website of businessinsider.com a report titled:
Mexican Drug Cartels Have Infiltrated All Of These US Cities
https://www.businessinsider.com/this-graphic-shows-what-mexican-cartels-and-drugs-come-to-your-town-2012-7
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from the website of buzzfeednews.com a report titled:
The FinCEN Files
Thousands of secret suspicious activity reports offer a never-before-seen picture of corruption and complicity — and how the government lets it flourish.
In all, suspicious activity reports in the FinCEN Files flagged more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017. Western banks could have blocked almost any of them, but in most cases they kept the money moving and kept collecting their fees.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks
Legalization of all drugs is the solution that will reap the most benefits for this nation.
There will not be a tsunami of new users seeking out mind altering substances a drugs are already widely available to those who wish to use them.
Legalization will unclog courts/prisons/jails across the nation. It will remove the violence associated with the sale of drugs. It will ensure a pure unadulterated product is available reducing hospitalizations.
Is legalization a perfect solution?
No – there is no such mythical beast.
However seeking to escalate 50 years of failed US government policies of incarceration/eradication/incarceration into the realm of assassination/kidnapping fully exposes the drug war for the failure that it has always been.
Psngr you offer a simplistic Libertarian remedy which will result in the death of thousands of users. Me too. Let the users die and “decrease the superfluous population”. Dickens or Darwin the result w/b the same. And no endless public paid programs of rehab. You gotta let the drugs take their toll. When the dying is done, the cartels will have no customers left.
I agree with you. The most addictive substance known to humankind?
3, 2, 1 ding. Wrong.
Nicotine. By far more addictive than anything else. Next on the list is benzodiazepenes. Which are legal with prescription in the US and around the world. They are so dangerously addictive that many people simply cannot stop because to do so is literally fatal. But the US and other doctors prescribe them anyway, almost always ignoring to warn people about the severe addictive risk and that they are designed to be used only for a few weeks. Else they simply don’t work and you need higher doses.
Then there’s alcohol. Extremely addictive. Very very hard to quit for addicts – alcoholics – becomes a systemic crippling disease/dependency. Also often fatal to longtime users who quit cold turkey.
PNG,
I fully agree. Legalization and control of substances for addicts is the only method known to work, simply by eliminating the profit motive. Will they just move onto something else? For the most part they already have, usually people smuggling and sex slavery. At least that’s something worth the cost.
The traditional approaches have so far failed dismally. “Decapitation”, whether it be drug cartels or violent non-state actors, have demonstrated time and again that when a group leader is assassinated or even jailed the group fragments, leading to smaller groups led by young radicalized taking up the leadership role.
In Juarez for example there’s a cartel on each street corner and turf wars are an everyday occurrence, with “collateral damage” off the charts. Or ask the Taliban who have spent twenty years being hunted down, their friends and families killed in night raids or bombings.
While recognizing that many want to see extreme, medieval style violence being meted out to them, the overwhelming evidence shows that it simply begets more and more killing. But I suppose if it’s not on their doorstep they don’t care much as long as they get to watch the blood sport….
Steve
Laughable. you are a natural born victim.
Pat,
No, just somebody who looks for viable solutions to problems rather than reaching for the beheading axe:)
“Mexican sovereignty,” “The Westphalian order,” “beheading.” a bullet in the chest at 500 yards is what I am talking about. Do you have any real idea of the damage being done to the US? You belong in Bidrn’s State Department/
Yes, I do know how much damage has been done. The Mexican and Columbian cartels supplied demand relentlessly and took a hammering for doing so, yet the problems are not solved. Indeed they’ve worsened – with the help of legal and crazily available pharmaceuticals handed out like MnMs. Will the Sacklers and their pushers be on the hit list? Of course not, they’ve even been handed immunity for involvement in killing what, about 100,000 Americans a year?
So much attention is paid to the drugs and their effects but why is there no exploration of the underlying causes of the misery that pervades so much of the country? Here’s a good place to start: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1518393112#abstract
“There will not be a tsunami of new users seeking out mind altering substances a drugs are already widely available to those who wish to use them.”
And you know this, how?
I agree that this would be a worthy endeavor. It’s not just drugs that the cartels are trafficking. Human trafficking and sex trafficking are now a large part of their business. You’re right, we have the special operations and intelligence needed to carry out this mission. And it should stay unilateral. I wouldn’t bother with extradition at all, all kill, no capture.
We need extremely deep cover US intelligence operatives and extremely well vetted indigenous intelligence and support agents. I was in a SMU that was dabbling in this kind of mission, a mission of extremes. This is very doable.
When I went through MOTC, I knew my first assignment was to be this unit, but no one would tell me what it was, where it was or what I would be doing. They just said, “You’re perfect for this.” One Army WO C/O told me I won’t be meeting my agents in bars and parks, I’d be meeting them at the third rattlesnake on the left. I did enjoy the assignment and I met a few old 10th Group buddies there.
I’d be meeting them at the third rattlesnake on the left.
Would you be so kind to decrypt this bit for me, TTG? Rattlesnakes on the left? 😉
LeaNder,
He meant I was destined to deal with unsavory, nasty-assed sources and assets in unsavory, nasty-assed environments. It would be operating in a land of “No Country for Old Men” rather than embassy or cocktail parties. He was partially right.
I seem to remember that both the old sheriff and his father were formidable. I identify with the man with the cattle killer.
pl,
I can fully understand the self-reliant fatalism of the Javier Bardem character, but I can’t say I identify with him. I’ve read that was the most accurate portrayal of a psychopath made on film. I do identify with the Tom Hanks character in “Road to Perdition.”
From the poem Sailing to Byzantium …..”no country for old men”. For the next Trivial Pursuits session.
Deap,
I became aware of that only after the movie came out. I guess, in a way, the movie also ponders upon the nature of man’s immortal spirit.
However, there is “mission creep” which will not be resisted. Why stop at cartel bosses? Surely we should hit their chief of staff, deputy, etc., etc. Then what about the corrupt police chief facilitating the trade? The guy who knowingly supplies the production equipment? The bankers?…..Then one day it’s the political candidate in favor of decriminalization who we decide should be whacked.
This is a very slippery slope.
As far as drugs are concerned, legalize their use and possession by registered addicts and treat them as medical, not criminal, problems. It’s cheaper that way.
“As far as drugs are concerned, legalize their use and possession…” This attitude gave us the Streets of San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, NYC’s subway, and the inspirational moral values of St. George Floyd – he of the trinity of televised funerals.
Fred,
I am a huge fan of Ex Baltimore Cop Michael Wood. He would disagree with you – he says quite clearly that the war on drugs has failed and is causing more problems than it is solving:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf7ryvcDvOE
I fear that the Colonel’s plan won’t work as we can kill all the cartel bosses that we like and they will only be replaced with other cartel bosses. There are enough people in Mexico who will be willing to risk death for fame, fortune, and chicas.
James,
Remind Ex-cop Michael Wood which party has run Baltimore’s government for decades. Perhaps he forgot what Trump said to the ‘civil rights’ icon Elijah Cummings about Baltimore’s political leadership.
P.S. Hang or behead the drug smugglers. In public, on prime time TV.
walrus,
Nah, you’re being too dramatic. Just kill the cartel leaders and those ambitious and greedy enough to take their place in the quickest and most efficient way possible. No fanfare. No frills. Leave all the enablers to the host country to deal with. Those in the US are a law enforcement and DOJ responsibility. Simplicity is a principle of war.
TTG,
But with the enormous profits available, is there a reasonable chance of finding the last head of this Hydra? The Amsterdam solution may be the simplest.
Mark Logan,
The cartels are involved in a lot more than just illicit drugs. And 50 states will certainly not agree on anything like the Amsterdam solution.
TTG,
That is true, it’s not feasible. We must go with what we can do, not what we might wish to be able to do. Removing the profit motive would be ideal though.
The cartels are involved in a lot of other things mainly because they have money to launder and more of it than they know what to do with. Without the drug money they are just common criminals.
TTG
It is amusing how many people who have no idea how such intelligence or covert operations would be conducted blather on in the belief that some drivel they heard in a classroom is actually true.
This could not be done half-heartedly. It would need to begin right here in El Norte and go long and hard, no backing off. Certainly secrecy is important, but I think a network of Border Patrol and Sheriffs would need to prepare for blowback. Then, how far do you go? Do you go after corrupt officials and bankers, too. And the Mexican Millitary would need to be ready to lock down the organizations that have been decapitated and roll them up for good. Those would be my thoughts.
It’s a bit heavy handed to put it mildly. If it was supplemented with a campaign to round up the MDs and pharmaceutical executives who knowingly profit off of addicting and brain damaging millions of children and adolescents with experimental LEGAl drugs and abandoning them to a desert island inhabited by Komodo dragons, Gila monsters and Cobras then I’d give it a tentative thumbs up. Another thing — the trend in numerous US states is heavily toward legalization of formerly illegal drugs. So it’s likely another well intentioned idea whose time has passed. You might want to consider something more subtle like a bug spray of some sort or hordes of genetically engineered mosquitoes who can only survive on human blood which tests positive for cocaine.
Fourth abnd Long,
The MDs and pharmaceutical executives are DOJ’s turf. Whether state legalize many drugs or not in immaterial. The goal is to eradicate the present and future leadership of the foreign cartels.
Expressed that way and so succinctly it is a commendable goal. Forgive my cynicism but if the military is one day directed to pursue that goal by the directors of the country I would estimate the chances as very high that their motivation will be similar to the British motivation for their opium sales to China. China had large quantities of things the British wanted – mainly ceramics and tea. But the Brits had nothing much that the Chinese wanted. So Britain needed to overcome that trade deficit. Enter opium, grown in “Inja’s sunny clime” (a British colony then) and sold within the territory of the Chinese Qing dynasty. Soon millions of addicts. So huge amounts were confiscated and burned by Qing authorities. Leading to the “Opium war” during which B occupied Hong Kong later ceded to B in the treaty of Nanking bc they won the wars.
A program such as suggested here would be motivated by the desire to eliminate that trade sinkhole – tons of US currency going into coffers of foreign powers, whether directly to purely criminal elements or otherwise. Furthermore, the cocaine would be assimilated into the increasingly legal portfolio of once illegal drugs and reappear as it once was in the US itself – a pharmaceutical product and even as a beverage supplement for energy enhancing sports enthusiasts. Too lucrative to pass up. Such a program may for the little I know be already underway. My point is that if the military does get involved it will be for reasons of trade deficit and expanding profitable enterprises prised away and gussied up. Not for a feel-good boy scout project.
F and L
Another weakling heard from.
It may make a good movie, but it is too simplistic and the unintended consequences would be numerous. And then there is the legal problem.
lars
another natural born victim.
This has a certain appeal but I am not sure the Mexicans would go along and we have so many of these people in our own country that I am not sure how much of a difference it would make overall.
It would seem to me that we should go after the people who are here while at the same time taking steps to prevent new cartel members from being recruited within the US or coming across the border. We cannot use military in US but it seems to me there is lots we can do to squash the cartels and local gangs too like bugs in the US. For some reason, we choose to do nothing but chase the same people around different cities and counties across the US as they commit crime after crime and cycle in and out of prison.
We should have gone after these groups like we did the Mafia years ago. Our passivity in the midst of all our big talk about crime and guns is astonishing to me.
What would the Cartels responds be in the USA? They have people on the US side of the border too.
Ambushes on police, assassinations of government officials, IEDs on buses etc, etc.
The War on Drugs have failed so I don’t see this policy as a way of deterring criminals from an extremely profitable trade.
Poul
You don’t think killing them would be a deterrent – are you disagreeing with the Colonel’s first premise? The narcocorridos may lionize these folk, but I do not think the average narco boss thinks there are 72 virgins waiting for him in heaven. They are straightforward criminals and if they decided to respond as you suggest with a campaign of terror in the US it would be very short and very deadly for them. Besides which, it would be very bad for business.
But this matter will remain the subject of Tom Clancy fictions. The US has the capability to mow the narco grass, but lacks the will even to build an effective wall along the southern border. AOC would probably want a photo op at the narco’s funerals.
Has it been a deterrent now? How many grow old in the drug business.
Money make Serbs and Kosovo-Albanians work together to smuggle drugs into the EU. It’s as powerful a motivator as belief in a cause.
As for deterrent it works both ways.
With standard Cartels policies as seen in Mexico etc. you can easily attack and massacre small American villages (200-400 people) in the entire country except Hawaii and Alaska. Kill highway patrol officers by the 100’s in drive-bys. Use IEDs on Greyhound buses.
It can start as a process which no one can control or like the results of.
You do not eliminate the motivation aka rewards of participation in the drugs trade with violence.
Poul
You don’t know enough SF soldier to have a valid opinion. When we hunt you, your days are numbered.
Barbara Ann
A practical example from the Philippines. No effect. I don’t see it having any effect in Mexico either.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-drugs-performance-exclusi-idUSKBN2010IL
We are couping the wrong countries. Should have done Mexico instead of Ukraine. Get our “Zelinsky” puppet to crack down on the cartels.
It is war. It is an invasion. It is a degradation of every value we stand for in America.
Of course, extreme measures against this scourge are appropriate. I wonder also how much protection racket money they are also absconding from the “legal” growers and sellers in California.
Legal pot cultivation in my county, now the largest acreage in the state, changed the character completely, yet huge illegal grows remain in federal forest lands. Something dark is happening in this county.
This is “The Reconquista” effort to regain the territory lost to the US nearly 200 years ago. Send a different army in different ways.
Yawn. Demographics are destiny! Says the left since before ’65. Looks like ‘those people’ aren’t voting that way, and aren’t going back to the homeland either. They could certainly be inspired to reconquer their own country, taking it back from the cartels and the politicians in Mexico that support it, if anyone actually tried to do so.
Bumping off cartel leaders briefs well, but how would deniability be established? It wouldn’t take long before somebody figured out these cartel hits were being carried out by U. S. special ops. And if the U.S. doesn’t care about deniability, then skip the covert and clandestine shenanigans and get after it.
Rick
Volunteers for the campaign would have to accept that capture would result in disavowal. Al equipment would be foreign. Having served in such ops I can tell you that there would be no lack of volunteers from within SOF
You should write another book. Use a pseudonym.
Why? I am not afraid. Nor am I ashamed of my name.
It strikes me that SOCOM forces are probably most effective if they have a lot of practical experience, so (from the perspective of one who values readiness above diplomacy) the mission would be worthwhile if only to keep the SOCOM forces experienced with real-world commando missions. In terms of the US Constitution, I think the Founding Fathers would have approved — they would probably have written out “letters of marque and reprisal” and instructed the commandos to leave not a stone upon a stone. They might have instructed someone like John Paul Jones to lead such efforts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Jones
But in the case of targeted killings/captures of cartelistas, I would like to see some detailed proposals and estimates on the numbers of friendly and unfriendly people who would actually get killed.
Would there be friendly casualties in such a campaign? Yes, but the costs now being inflicted on the people of the USA outweigh such casualties.
Suppose the operation went on for three years. During those three years, how many cartel targets would be neutralized, and how many friendly casualties would get killed as collateral damage? I suspect that some people would lie by omission and others would lie directly. That is, I imagine that collateral damage might be under-reported by some auditors, whereas other critics would lie and falsely report unrelated deaths as collateral damage of this program.
longarch
you are funny. do you actually think that results can be predicted like in a phony business plan?
This may’ve been mentioned (fireworks in the boonies set for this evening so insufficient time to thoroughly read all comments).
China’s “exporting” [seemingly] a largish amount of fentanyl to the cartels. Being used to “stretch” the supply of product the cartels are exporting to “us.”
What to do about the China trade – sink a ship or two?
I don’t have hardly a qualm in the world about what the Colonel’s proposal promises to the cartelistas but their, oh ‘enablers’ I suppose might be the correct term?
Forget the ‘capture’ part. Just start the process of attrition. Get the intel, get to the ‘X’, terminate the target and get off the ‘X’. Next!
Vincent Turner
Agreed.
Colonel Lang…
Its Good to see you Well Enough to be Back in The Saddle here And Making Your Positions on Various Issues Clear and Direct..Thats a Leader to me…And NOT for
The Money and Power… That Motivates All Those You Mention..Clearly..
Its about Preserving Our UNION..Our Republic..from ALL Enemys..Foreign and Domestic..And There Are Many..
As to your Proposals…I Agree… President Trump ..in the Summer of 2020…Proposed
to Secretary of Defense Mark T Esper…that We Fire Patriot Missles into Mexico…Take Out The Cartels..and The Drug Labs..He Despised Them..and the Damage and Evil they Do…I Think Trump would have given your Ideas Serious Consideration..
Covert Operations Have been Conducted before..Many Times..i/e Columbia..and World Wide..
Its no longer Being considered …Despite the Vast damage to the United States…the 100,000 drug Deaths..The Organized Crime Syndicates..of many types…The Druggers and Street People Soiling American Streets…The Corruption of America Top Down…
Without Remorse…Aided and Abetted..By Democrat Administrations all all Levels..
Donald Trump Fired Mark T Esper on November 9th..2020…and Replaced Him
With Christopher Miller…Director of the National Counter Terrorism Center..
Esper Wrote a Tell All Book this Year..He was Highly Critical of a President like Trump…Who Felt it was His DUTY..To Preserve..Protect and Defend the United States… from ALL Enemys …Foreign and Domestic..
Thank You Colonel..and All Like Minded…Who Give Inspiration..SST..
JT
“ALL Enemys..Foreign and Domestic..”
Thats The OATH..Sworn to by POTUS ..The Senators..And Congress Persons.
and The SUPREME COURT…
Is an Enemy Defined..in The Constitution…Or Commonly Understood..?
Webster Definition…One that is Antagonistic to Another..
2. One Seeking to Injure..Over Throw or Confound an Opponent..
3..Something Harmful…or DEADLY..
Also Look at ALL Synonyms…And Antonyms..(Amigos)
It The OATH Sworn to..On A Bible..mere Theater ..And Meaningless..??
WITHOUT Punishment for those who Violate or Break Thier OATH..of Office
To The Citizens of The United States…???? A Mockery..
JT
Col. Lang, I have no doubts that it can be done, however the question remains about effectiveness. How far up the supply chain can you get?
IMHO, there is little being done in the USA in terms of harm reduction by legalization and medical means. The prison industry sees to that. Guess which approach is more expensive? Treating and managing addiction or locking people up?
walrus
what you suggest should be done in addition to my deterrent program for leaders.
1. Decriminalize possession and use of non commercial quantities.
2. Legalize/ build a medical recovery program including controlled use of substitutes.
3. Hang knowing smugglers and commercial dealers.
In other words, build an unbridgeable chasm between users and dealers.
Stop incarcerating mere users – it’s expensive and pointless.
Make drug use socially unacceptable starting with the “smart” cocaine users.
one way to get instantly ostracized by me is for someone to tell me “everybody does it”. Everybody doesn’t.
Belated Happy 4th! Walrus you are almost there. Decriminalize all drugs but, spend not one federal (states can do what they want in their own states) dollar for drug help/medical/occupational; let the users die. This solves both the demand and supply problem. Kill both ends of the market.
If you do that, they will sell even more drugs into the US.
Treating addicts does require locking them up – most of the costs of incarceration are spent on inmate health care anyway. Jails and drug treatment are just starting to go hand in hand in my state.
The out-patient model for addicts has been a failure, a very expensive failure since it requires the 24 hour services of multiple social workers for each addict.
In our “progressive” and heavily impacted California town, the police allow active drug dealing to continue right next to the vagrant camps since our current legal system requires we accept their right to camp anywhere they want, unless we provide them free “alternative” housing.
So they camp, pollute, set fires, harass the local community, destroy business and tourism, while running theft and prostitution rings right under out noses so they can buy more drugs. ACLU makes sure the headlines scream “we are not doing enough” when one predictably dies.
No one is helped in this current non-incarceration model, and huge amounts of social and economic harm is inflicted on the community with our hands legally tied by activist Obama judges.
While living in Switzerland after declaring how “perfect everything things seems to be”, the response was always ……that is because we hide our problems … darkly referencing the many Swiss sanitariums this country has long been known for. A problem-solving model we should investigate more thoroughly.
Good analysis of “legal pot” experience in California, as London explores legal pot in England – one in five admits to regular pot use in California and the fundamental lies about legal pot become obvious after six years experience in this state:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-10976437/How-Californias-legal-cannabis-dream-public-health-nightmare.html
1. It is addictive
2. It does lead to stronger stuff
3. It did not eliminate the massive drug cartels
4. Illegal pot sales still out rank legal pot sales 2:1
5. Promised tax revenues will never compensate for growing social costs
6. Mental illness admissions among young people on the rise
Every state that has done this must experience the same problems. Yet who is stepping back from supporting legalization in the other states where it has not happened yet? That should not be hard.
The ones who have it should certainly reconsider. It is costing them money and big problems
Are they that afraid of their pot using voters?
Deap:
1. It is addictive -yes, especially when used as self medication for stress by teenagers. There is no faster way to flush an education down the toilet than dope because it destroys short term memory and results in a spiralling academic failure Teachers can usually pick it when a kid goes from straight A’s to D minus in a month. However privacy laws forbid them to do much about it and the parents won’t thank them anyway.
2. It does lead to stronger stuff- yes, if you can’t find a shrink that knows how to arrest the slide into heavy stuff. That happens when the dope doses are so large they cause vomiting.
3. It did not eliminate the massive drug cartels – because people are still having to source it illegally.
4. Illegal pot sales still out rank legal pot sales 2:1 – price is everything.
5. Promised tax revenues will never compensate for growing social costs – social costs include $50,000 – $60,000 per year to jail someone, plus insurance premiums, security systems, police and court costs. Can you afford NOT to treat the problem as a medical issue?
6. Mental illness admissions among young people on the rise – Yes, especially schizophrenia. You need to treat this as a medical problem. Until you do, concerned parents can’t even legally try to help their kids.
The bulk of “incarceration costs” are the health care costs for the incarcerated anyway. So jail time is in fact already medical time. Just with the added bonus of getting these SOB’s off the streets.
Anyone who crosses our borders with fentanyl to sell on the streets, just voluntarily put a bullseye on their own forehead. It is about linking punishment to the nature of the crime.
Might as well come across the border with suitcase dirty bomb and an already ticking timer. I personally support the War on Drugs. But I also despair at the depth of the ready market, waiting once they get across our borders.
Deap,
I think the majority of the fentanyl comes here by mail.
The majority of fentanyl comes through mail that isn’t caught at customs? That sounds rather hard to believe.
Fred,
The fentanyl from China and India is almost exclusively coming through USPS. That’s how it’s getting into Canada as well (Canada Post). The Mexican fentanyl is coming by truck and car through CBP crossing points. The Laredo crossing point is a major gateway to I-35 and the entire country.
TTG,
“Illicit fentanyl, primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled into the United States through Mexico …”
https://www.dea.gov/resources/facts-about-fentanyl
Not meaning to be disagreeable but apparently there’s some dispute concerning whether China and India nationals are simply going to their version of the post office, buying adequate postage, then simply dropping the stuff into their “Deliver to the US” slot.
Too, there’s a modus operandi I’m passingly familiar with owing to, ‘a kinfolk’ [pardon the expression – the head honcho of the outfit gets kinda ‘out-of-sorts’ if the operators get, in any way, personally identifiable if you catch my drift]
Anyway the shorthand M.O. is “Where there’s a poultry processing plant, there’s cartel activity” … And it seems to this humble hillbilly at least, that that’s highly likely because in those counties the Sheriff’s departments often as not have at their disposal automatic weapons or at least, quick access to such ‘kinfolk’ as I have who most definitely do have such disposal.
(Now I will acknowledge that, in the instances where there’s envelopes containing ‘large denomination folding money’ that’s got intercepted – and made the news – more often than not Postal Inspectors are the ones who accept the credit.)
Cartels are suppliers. You’ll never get rid of the supply problem until you address the demand problem.
here is a symptom of your problems…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhvvxoIgNPg
there is a good youtube channel that interviews homeless people and drugs users and when you hear their stories a pattern starts to emerge.
https://www.youtube.com/c/SoftWhiteUnderbelly
There is a slight problem with the “homeless drug user” story: the subjects have very little money for anything.
The cartel marketing arm, like any good business, focuses on clients with disposable income. This includes, private school kids, university students, hip young professionals and similar. As an (ex) friend of mine said: “using cocaine is Gods way of telling you that you have too much money”. The cartels don’t market to the poor.
The legal system is suitably biased to ensure the high net worth user gets away with this behaviour, not so the poor.
I was once told “ring this number and a guy in a black mercedes’ brings you what you want”.
Walrus: “The cartels don’t market to the poor.”
Cartels can make plenty of money if they maintain or increase market share to meet shifting drug preferences. Cartels pivoted to heroin following marijuana legalization and the fallout from our FDA-approved opioid crisis. The homeless people milling around Phily like zombies may have started by blowing through savings on their way to the bottom, but a heroin addiction is cheap and sustainable on petty crime.
One key difference between affluent and poor users IMO is high-end users who don’t burn all their familial bridges may still have more support to get clean, if they want it.
Scenes from Phily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFK55uK12GQ
John Oliver on the Slacker family: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o
This includes, private school kids, university students, hip young professionals and similar. As an (ex) friend of mine said: “using cocaine is Gods way of telling you that you have too much money”. The cartels don’t market to the poor.
I don’t know anything about Mexican marketing to the poor, but I do know a lot of bad drugs come from the PRC, and the PRC loves marketing to the poor. Communist China certainly wants every resident of the USA to use as much fentanyl as possible, and is willing to send spies to Mexico and other countries to encourage the use of Communist financing and Communist physical resources to weaken the USA.
The legal system is suitably biased to ensure the high net worth user gets away with this behaviour, not so the poor.
The USA legal system is biased in a lot of ways, but the influence of Communist China is a major source of evil.
https://www.propublica.org/article/china-cartels-xizhi-li-money-laundering
The PRC is eager to corrupt the USA in every way possible.
Quote:
As they investigated Li’s tangled financial dealings, U.S. agents came across evidence indicating that his money laundering schemes involved Chinese government officials and the Communist Party elite. China’s omnipresent security forces tightly control and monitor its state-run economy. Yet Li and others moved tens of millions of dollars among Chinese banks and companies with seeming impunity, according to court documents and national security officials. The criminal rings exploited a landscape in which more than $3.8 trillion of capital has left China since 2006, making the country the world’s top “exporter of hot money,”
…
The Chinese government is “at least tacitly supporting” the laundering activity, testified Faller, who led the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees military activity in Latin America.
Question.
Who are the bankers of all the cash
Solution
Terminate bankers.Burn cash
No money no honey
Interesting concept. Would the RoE allow US assets to work in the rest of Central and South America? The cartels have many assets all over the region. If Mexico got too hot they would move elsewhere.
Would members of the Mexican military, law enforcement and political leadership be targets? They are part and parcel of the cartel system. Of course, this would end up including the members of these organisations from various countries in the region.
What would we do north of the border to slow down/stop demand for drugs and prostitutes? It is all about supply and demand. As long there is demand someone, foreign or domestic, will step up to fill in the void. Death penalties for those big time American drug dealers? How to stop demand? American history is not exactly replead with good examples of stopping supply and demand of illegal substances.
Could the death penalty for large drug dealers be extended to the bankers and financers who abide and abet the financing of the drug cartels?
It would seem there is a rot in American society, large cities and rural areas, that is fueling the demand for illegal drugs. If drugs cant come over the border it would increase demand for pharmaceutical highs. Could hefty prison sentences be given to doctors and officials in US drug companies for complicity in the epidemic? OD deaths in “fly over” America are epidemic, much of that is coming from drugs that are coming from the US. How is this to be addressed? Would there be anything planned to address the seeming epidemic of hopelessness in ALL sectors of American society that is behind the drugs scourage?
The US has been unable to stop or even slow down the thirst for illegal drugs in the US. But it is clear that slowing down the drive for illegal drugs would HAVE to be part of a solution. But this isnt really being talked about. Solutions?
I am not against the idea, but it would need to be much more comprehensive than what is being discussed. Seems to me the cartels are serving the symptoms of rot in the US with illegal drugs and prostitution. What are we, as Americans, going to do to address the rot? A comprehensive solution is needed and liquidating the cartel would just be a part of it.
The RoE are whatever the government says they are. Judgments would be rendered by the special federal court.
Drones could be very useful in taking out the narco kingpins!
Agree.
It can become rather risky to launch “special military operations” in neighboring countries. The unintended consequences can multiply. Hundreds of thousands US citizens visit Mexico every year and I am one of them. I would not like to become a target for retaliation. Nor do I think anyone else would.
Girly boy timidity.
What happened to the cartel hit man who used to be in federal prison?
https://nypost.com/2022/12/07/beltran-leyva-cartel-hitman-la-barbie-missing-from-prison/
I don’t usually get involved in what is strictly US domestic policy. I am not a US citizen and your problems are quite different from ours.
But I think Stefan’s ideas (October 14, 2022 at 9:47 am ) are worth considering.
The Mexican cartels are smuggling drugs and prostitutes because there is a demand north of their border.
Regarding drugs, one of two things:
Either you dry up the demand.
Or the US pharmaceutical industry takes over.
(More obviously, the energetic “exterminate all these bullies.” Working at the source is always good to consider.)
The issue of women is a very sensitive human one. I don’t have any ideas, at least none that I can share.
Not all the bullies, just the leaders. Death is not preferrable to profits. i don’t care about the whores. We have a lot as do you.
Too schematic or short-sighted.
Behind the leader you have eliminated, another one will rise, too happy to occupy the empty place and as competent.
Same as revolutionary war: the replacement of the discarded is always ready. The pool is too big.
It would be necessary to introduce into them (cartels) agents of disinformation and intoxication to weaken them from within. In Algeria, we have controlled and destroyed a Willaya from the inside for a few months (opération “bleuite”) without any risk for us. The agents of intoxication were it without their knowledge. ( “mechanical agent” or “torpedo”). After serving and serving well, most were killed by the newly self-appointed leaders.
It’s a war , a real war with shrewdness.
This not about religion, only money. Mere money is not worth certain death.
d74,
I was not familiar with opération bleuite so I looked at the translation of the French Wikipedia page on the subject.
https://fr-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Bleuite?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
Fascinating, but certainly not unfamiliar. It appears it was the next phase of the war depicted in “The Battle of Algiers,” a phase emphasizing infiltration and disinformation. We watched and discussed that movie in my SF officers course in 1981. At that time we used the movie to learn how to form an underground organization and how to secure it from adversaries. I understand it was viewed in the Pentagon after 9/11 in order to learn how to take underground organizations apart.
Today we might call opération bleuite an information operation and/or a covert operation. I also see elements of pseudo-gang operations. I could see how all that could be used against the cartels.
Wiki gives a good summary. It is better to go directly to the source of the one who had the idea and implemented it on a daily basis.
(Captain) Paul Alain Léger “At the Crossroads of War”.1940-1961. ISSBN 2-226-01764-X . Not translated in English.
In this book, no “strategic” point of view but an account of his war actions on the ground level. He did many other (open) actions than the bleuite, but absolute discretion when officer under cover at the SDECE.
The local military authority had to give its authorization for this kind of operation. He and his boss, Colonel Godard, were considered crazy by these “firepower and concrete” generals when they exposed the project.
Ages ago, I read a book by Jacques Vergès who defended quite a few members of the NLF, if I recall correctly. Weren’t Sartre et Beauvoir supportive of the ‘Réseau Jeanson’ too?
But yes, elegant solution: just have your political opponents kill each other themselves.
The drug problem is similar to the problem of illegal immigration although US business and people who hire them see benefit from them as cheap labor annd consumers. The illegals will keep coming as long as they are in demand, which will be forever because of our falling birthrate and the drugs will keep flowing because if our insatiable appetite for them.
You are just making excuses for inaction.
OK how about like they do in Saudi Arabia, public executions for drug dealers and jail time for people who hire illegals knowingly.
idiotic. one bullet one kill. In SA they will cut your hand off for steaking fruit i a market. They stone women to death fir adultery. These bastards killed 100k stupid Americans last year.
Land covertly by techniques you know and I don’t. “Discover” factories for biological weapons and a nearly completed hydrogen bomb with computer files proving that several up to three are in the wind. Televise. A few very scary accidents occur inside the 48. The president addresses the nation. Next day photos of mushroom clouds appear on the web. Fake attacks orchestrated for effect. All the while do your operation taking out Misters Big1 Big2 … and Biggest. You might need to sacrifice some lambs along the way.
——-
The situation is unclear. Pete Buttigieg appears to have been sighted waving from the porthole of a submersible aircraft carrier. A gigantic atomic radiated tsunami hits Galveston. Several Hydrogen bombs explode in cities of a country in the Western hemisphere in a country not the US or Canada.
Kamala Harris greets the nation as 47th President of the United States. TTG is the Vice President. No one dares ask for an explanation and none is forthcoming. An ancient Baltic Language appears as a very popular elective in every University, College and Commumity College in the great nation. In High Schools it is mandatory.
The cocaine smuggling infestation of the United States in the 21st century is a problem of the distant past.
The new president convenes the United Nations General Assembly for discussion of the topic: Does size really matter?
Vladimir Putin speaks first on the related topic of treatment of gender dysphoria whimsy psychosis in former Soviet States and Republics.
The Presidents of several Nations are revealed to be members of an ancient covert society which uses children for unspeakable pursuits.
An exceptionally large cloud in the shape of a dragon is no longer sighted. Its existence had been a closely guarded secret.
—–
I Agree With Pat totally on The Proper Response by the United States…We Are Under Attack Domestically Through Many Nefarious Means…Foreign and Domestic..
On The Chinese…Drug Cartel Means and Methods of Causing Deaths in The United States..through Drug Dealing…Its Long Past Time..For Politicians Talking Bull Shit about a “Drug War”…And Nancy Regans..”Just Say No.. For the last 50 Years Of Happy Hippys and Progressive Democrats…I went to the Autopsy of a 17 Year Old Girl..Who Had Been Abducted In Front of A Pizza Shop By Two Males High on LSD..Taken Away in a Car…Raped..and Shot ten Times Through The Face and Top of Her Head..With 22 cal Shots ..Brutal…
They Execute All Drug Dealers in China,,Public Executions…and Put Leg Monitors on Known Users so That Can Be Tracked..and Taken For Intense Rehab..Ironic..But They use Drugs as a Weapon in thier War Against Us…DRSB..Plus the Covid..Espionage..And Military ..Threats of ALL Types..( Invasion)??
See Storys about Thier Public Executions for Example…at
https:www.nytimes.com/1991/10/27/world/china-executes-35-drug-traffickers.html
JT
Coolio bro. So, let’s detail the entire chain of fentanyl entering the US. Then, let’s target the entire chain, a kill chain. From Intelligence Handlers US or Foreign, to Bankers US or Foreign, to Honchos US or Foreign, to Postal Workers US or Foreign, across the globe. Then, let’s sick SOCOM on them. Just like that, quiet murders across continents without any connections, except fentanyl. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Politician, an Intelligence Operative, A Banker, A Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, a Shipping Magnate, a Border Patrol Agent or a Street Whore. Let the Vengers seek the Vengeance. If I ran the Zoo – it would be that way.
We rightly condemn the Mexican government for their part in the drug trade and can’t trust them. The plan described in this article to eradicate these cartels is, I believe the only way to get it done. To “kill the chain”, how do we deal with this aspect….
our own government. We have an enabler in the White House who is aware of the death and destruction of Americans caused by fentanyl smuggled across the southern border. Neither Biden nor his DHS mouth piece or any other member of his junta will act on the border to stop the thousands of illegals crossing every week. Our ‘President’ can’t even be bothered to visit the border.
SOCOM for this?
“SOCOM for this?” What else?
Probably nothing else in their place. My question put as delicately as possible is: the “kill chain” has bottom links who will never be known about or missed. The top links, “politician” or “IO”, could be problematic could it not? Not that I would lose much sleep.
Why would you want something else in their stead? That is why SOCOM ad its components exist. We are not talking about boy scouts. Soldiers go to a lot of trouble to become members of these units. CIA? LOL.
Whitewall
In my vision, it doesn’t matter if a few are missed at the top or the bottom. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but to utterly destroy the financing, production, transportation and distribution of a network of poisoners will be, let’s say impressive, and perhaps a model for confronting criminal activities in total and in detail. When, shortly before Halloween, candy themed fentanyl pills were intercepted, and just the other day another toddler in a park came across one – nobody better than SOCOM to take the hammer to these criminals. And I would suggest, this is 4th generation warfare.
No argument w/the solution; a SoCom deadly opn to kill cartels, mules, and retailers. Kill them. But the military works for a Pres who doesn’t give a ship. Many in his administration are anti American, want no borders, and don’t care about drugs. No Pres support no military opn on the border. The problem is political.
BR
What I am talking about is an extended campaign lasting a year or two in which we seek to break the will to continue the war of the cartels against the US. If given the right order SOCOM would form a JTF to conduct the campaign.
Doesn’t that have to have the Pres ok?
The campaign? Of course.
I would favor the president seeking an AUMF specifically focused on the cartels, NOT a presidential finding. A finding would give the CIA a chance to f—k with SOCOM conduct of operations.
Bill,
That’s kind of what I was getting at earlier. The ability of SOCOM to do the mission is not in doubt. The willingness or even enough ‘give a damn’ by the C&C and his underlings is seriously in doubt.
Amen.
How is this fundamentally different than then conditions under which those people already operate?
I question your premise number 1. If they’d fear death enough to avoid playing the game, they wouldn’t play it to begin with.
I understand it would be like nothing they ever faced. But so were the Zetas, for instance, and now they’ve all absorbed it.
I’d wager they will fight you and adapt and you will not break their morale. You will make them harder and smarter.
IMO, this is not enough by a long shot.
You idiot! They have mastered their present environment. They would not master this.
A Mortal man c/n master death. It is final. Our ability to destroy the scum is not the issue. The issue is the unwillingness of the CIC and his cohorts. If they loved America they would destroy this scum but they won’t. Americans are insane to elect those who hate them. Why is that.
I realize that this may sound facetious but assure any reader that nothing is farther from my mind at this eleventh day of the twelfth month of the last year to contain three twos and one zero in its ordinary expression until the year 2202, in other words 180 years which equals five times the square of six or 5x6x6.
But if I am correct that these cartels and their villainous rulers are believed to be located in Mexico, then I ask you to consider in your strategies and thoughts the fact that there are elements of underlying reality which are so abstract to the human way of thinking that they are overlooked, sometimes with amusing consequences but not always.
Thus if a person, force, contingent or set of materials travels from these regions here to those regions one is moving north to south or from above to a region far below or under these regions. I cannot otherwise rest in good conscience then unless I impart this thought, namely that such a proposition embodies, without one necessarily realizing it, nothing less than descent into the very Underworld itself. Yes, the one of myth, fable and in some variants cursed infernal demonic damnation.
Who, to our knowledge ever returned from such an enterprise to tell of it? Hercules who was a son of Zeus or Jupiter. Orpheus. But Orpheus was a divine singer whose songs were known to carry supernatural beauty with corresponding effects. Jesus Christ. But he was the son of God born of a Virgin Mother. Pythagoras? No. He perpetrated a rude hoax by appearing out of the depths of a simple cave which had a secret entrance unknown to his dupliciously deceived followers and assorted troupe.
I invite any reader of these words to examine the fascinatingly informative text pasted below which I took the liberty to translate by means of an automatic system of algorithms. It won’t be required to tell anyone here of the interesting characteristics of two or three of the names.
With this I wish any passerby the heartiest health and most pleasurable onset of the upcoming week.
—————
Archaeologists have discovered ritual vessels in one of the Mayan settlements. Their contents helped shed light on the details of one of the bloodiest rites of the ancient Indians – the ball game. About what we managed to find out – in the material of RIA Novosti.
The power of the ancestors
Excavations at Tonino, a Mayan settlement in the southeast of present-day Mexico , have been going on for several decades. But until now, this place is fraught with many secrets. One of them was uncovered by a team of Mexican archaeologists.
Examining the temple pyramid of the Sun, they stumbled upon a small underground room – a crypt. But there were no skulls or bones inside. But there were more than 400 vessels with incomprehensible contents.
Nearby on the wall is an engraved inscription: “The bodies of the lords went to the Cave of Death for transformation. And returned to life after 260 days.”
Microscopic analysis showed: a strange mixture consisted of plant roots, charcoal, volcanic rock and … cremated human remains. So what were the bodies of the rulers supposed to turn into?
The answer is amazing: balls.
“We assume that the Mayans took these ingredients to make rubber. Then they gave it the shape of a ball and used it to play,” says expedition leader Juan Yadeun, an archaeologist.
(Entrance to the labyrinth of the Underworld Palace)
According to him, the hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that there are two large stadiums near the temple of the Sun in Tonino. Scientists note: the competition was popular with the Indians. This is evidenced by many drawings, bas-reliefs, figurines and frescoes
According to him, the hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that there are two large stadiums near the temple of the Sun in Tonino. Scientists note: the competition was popular with the Indians. This is evidenced by many drawings, bas-reliefs, figurines and frescoes.
True, the exact place and time of its appearance is unknown. When excavating Mayan cities, archaeologists often find rubber balls and playgrounds. The age of the most ancient is about 3.5 thousand years.
As for adding human remains to sports equipment, they did it intentionally.
“Just as the Egyptians mummified their dead ancestors, the Mayans believed that the power of the rulers was in their bodies. Therefore, the best way to preserve it is to place it in other objects,” explains Juan Yadeun.
Battle of the gods
But the ball game is not just a game. It was a real ritual. Historians traditionally elevate it to one of the plots of the Mayan epic – “Popul-Vuh
The legend tells about the two twin gods Hun-Hun-Ahpu and Vukub-Hun-Ahpu: they spent all the time carelessly rolling a ball around the field. One day they couldn’t find a place to play and saw an unfamiliar empty road. And it led straight to the underworld – Xibalba.
The underground gods were very angry: why is it that someone is having fun upstairs, not having any respect for them. Cunning demons came out to the brothers and made sweet speeches. They were assured that the game would “make them really happy.” The gullible twins, unaware that they were going to be killed, descended into the dungeon. After passing many trials, they themselves killed the evil spirits of Xibalba and returned back.
Later, the role of the gods was tried on by people. The game began to symbolize the cult of fertility. And the movement of the ball across the field is the movement of the Sun across the sky. Historians cannot yet reconstruct the overall picture in more detail.
The underground gods were very angry: why is it that someone is having fun upstairs, not having any respect for them. Cunning demons came out to the brothers and made sweet speeches. They were assured that the game would “make them really happy.” The gullible twins, unaware that they were going to be killed, descended into the dungeon. After passing many trials, they themselves killed the evil spirits of Xibalba and returned back.
Later, the role of the gods was tried on by people. The game began to symbolize the cult of fertility. And the movement of the ball across the field is the movement of the Sun across the sky. Historians cannot yet reconstruct the overall picture in more detail.
According to the surviving images and the chronicle of the 16th century Spanish monk Toribio de Benavente, some rules are known. Two teams of two or three people competed. Each was located in its own half of the field, the players threw the ball between themselves until it went out of bounds or fell to the ground. That’s how you earn points. Whoever has more, he won.
Tourists near the wall of the ball field in the territory of the pre-Columbian city of Coba of the Maya civilization in Mexico
Later, stone rings were added on opposite sides of the playground. They were mounted vertically in the wall at a height of about two meters, sometimes higher. And they were not much larger than the ball. Getting there is no easy task.
Loser – death
And the player’s life was at stake. Artifacts testify that the competition often ended with a sacrifice. At the stadiums in the ancient cities of Chichen Itza and El Tajin, stone slabs – tzompantli – with images of decapitated players were found.
Whether the entire losing team was executed or just the captain is unknown. Archaeologists have not yet found mass graves near the playing fields.
The Spanish chronicles also report that the Maya organized similar competitions on the occasion of military victories. The game symbolized the superiority of Indian rulers over opponents.
Fragment of zompantli at Chichen Itza
It got to the point that the captives were cut off their heads, rolled up in rubber and turned into a ball. Images of playing rulers have been preserved, where inside the ball is a killed vassal. And next to it is a note from which kingdom he is from.
Even the devout Spaniards, who conquered the continent in the 16th century, could not eradicate the deadly game. A similar contest still exists in the Mexican state of Sinaloa . It’s called Ulama. True, you don’t have to pay for the defeat with your life.
“there are elements of underlying reality which are so abstract to the human way of thinking that they are overlooked, sometimes with amusing consequences but not always.” Sophist horse shit. The cartel leaders have no motivation other than money. I say again certain death is more important than money.